How Long Do Court Cases Take?
Official timeliness statistics for civil, family and criminal courts in England & Wales, taken directly from the Ministry of Justice's quarterly statistical releases. Every figure below is machine-extracted from the official CSV data and carries its exact source edition, publication name and column — nothing here is averaged, estimated, or rounded beyond what the CSV itself contains. Data retrieved 2026-08-24.
Court timeliness: Civil courts (County Court)
Civil justice statistics quarterly · January to March 2026- 01. Small Claim — 01. Avg time issue to hearing (weeks)
- 46.2 weeks
- January to March 2026 · from timeliness_csv.csv (value (filtered by category, sub_category1))
- 01. Small Claim — 04. Median time issue to hearing (weeks)
- 37.6 weeks
- January to March 2026 · from timeliness_csv.csv (value (filtered by category, sub_category1))
- 02. Fast, Multi and Intermediate track trials — 01. Avg time issue to hearing (weeks)
- 68.6 weeks
- January to March 2026 · from timeliness_csv.csv (value (filtered by category, sub_category1))
- 02. Fast, Multi and Intermediate track trials — 04. Median time issue to hearing (weeks)
- 54.3 weeks
- January to March 2026 · from timeliness_csv.csv (value (filtered by category, sub_category1))
Source: Ministry of Justice, Civil justice statistics quarterly, January to March 2026 (Open Government Licence). Read the release · All court delay statistics
Court timeliness: Family courts
Family Court Statistics Quarterly · January to March 2026- Decree Absolute (All case types, All law) — mean_weeks
- 67.3 weeks
- January to March 2026 · from CSV Divorce Timeliness 2026 Q1.csv (mean_weeks)
- Decree Absolute (All case types, All law) — median_weeks
- 39.3 weeks
- January to March 2026 · from CSV Divorce Timeliness 2026 Q1.csv (median_weeks)
- Children Act (Public) — Care/Supervision — Mean_duration (England and Wales, all DFJs)
- 37.0 weeks
- January to March 2026 · from CSV Children Act 26 Weeks 2026 Q1.csv (Mean_duration)
- Children Act (Public) — Care/Supervision — Median_duration (England and Wales, all DFJs)
- 31.4 weeks
- January to March 2026 · from CSV Children Act 26 Weeks 2026 Q1.csv (Median_duration)
Source: Ministry of Justice, Family Court Statistics Quarterly, January to March 2026 (Open Government Licence). Read the release · All court delay statistics
Court timeliness: Criminal courts (Crown Court)
Criminal court statistics quarterly · January to March 2026- England and Wales, all pleas/remand statuses/offence groups — receipt at the crown court to completion (mean)
- 262.4 days
- January to March 2026 · from cc_timeliness_2026Q1.csv (receipt at the crown court to completion (mean))
- England and Wales, all pleas/remand statuses/offence groups — receipt at the crown court to completion (median)
- 168 days
- January to March 2026 · from cc_timeliness_2026Q1.csv (receipt at the crown court to completion (median))
- England and Wales, all pleas/remand statuses/offence groups — charge to completion at the crown court (mean)
- 291.9 days
- January to March 2026 · from cc_timeliness_2026Q1.csv (charge to completion at the crown court (mean))
- England and Wales, all pleas/remand statuses/offence groups — charge to completion at the crown court (median)
- 183 days
- January to March 2026 · from cc_timeliness_2026Q1.csv (charge to completion at the crown court (median))
Source: Ministry of Justice, Criminal court statistics quarterly, January to March 2026 (Open Government Licence). Read the release · All court delay statistics
No equivalent figures for most tribunals
MoJ's Tribunals Statistics Quarterly publishes receipts, disposals and outstanding caseload counts for the Employment Tribunal, the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal, and the Social Security and Child Support Tribunal — but it does not publish a headline timeliness measure (mean or median time to hearing or disposal) for these tribunals, unlike the civil, family and criminal court releases above. We are not substituting a different metric or an estimate here: there is currently no official MoJ/HMCTS timeliness statistic for most tribunals to show.
About these figures
These statistics come from the Ministry of Justice's Civil Justice Statistics Quarterly, Family Court Statistics Quarterly and Criminal Court Statistics Quarterly publications on GOV.UK, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Each panel above links to the specific release its figures were taken from. These are national aggregate measures — actual timescales for an individual case can vary substantially by court, case type and complexity.